Expressway Widening Faces Hurdles

LIKE the chicken and the egg, it is hard to know which came first, traffic or roads. Since it was built in the 50's under the leadership of Robert Moses, the Long Island Expressway has been synonymous with traffic backups and delays.

An engineer who designed parts of the original expressway, Harry Wartur, recalled:

"I said to Moses: 'This road is too narrow. It will be over capacity before we're done building it.' But Moses said, 'We take what we can get when we get it.' What he was talking about was money and politics."

And now, less than 35 years since the expressway was completed, the state's Transportation Department, in the face of community concerns and budget problems, plans to widen what has been called the world's longest parking lot. The proposed expansion would run between Exit 30 in Douglaston, Queens, and Exit 64 in Medford.

Politicians, environmentalists and residents are questioning whether the proposed construction, scheduled to begin in 1994, will yield a net benefit.

"We have one preferred option and one alternative option," said the regional design engineer for the state, Craig Siracusa. "The High Occupancy Vehicle lane is our proposed action, and a general use lane is our alternate option."

Under the proposals, the state would add one lane in each direction. In the HOV proposal, just cars with at least two people would use the new left lane. Under the general-use proposal, the lane would not have restrictions.

The high-occupancy proposal received the best overall rating after initial studies of air, water and noise quality. But the state estimates that it would be more expensive to build and take up more land for the federally required buffers needed between the lane and the general-use roadway. Need for Transition Lane Cited

Mr. Wartur said that he agreed that the proposal was best environmentally, but that the access might be dangerous. "You need a long transition lane between the main road and the H.O.V. lane," he said. "It takes so much more land to make a good transition lane than what they have."

Experts disagree on the costs. In 1988, voters approved spending $147 million on expanding the expressway between Exit 40 in Jericho and Exit 64. "And that's the only money we have," Mr. Siracusa said.

Mr. Siracusa said he expected the first section, between Exits 49 in Melville and 57 in Hauppauge, a 12-mile stretch, to cost $100 million, leaving $47 million for the other 28 miles. "It is a high priority to the state for future funding, so we expect to get more," he added.

Last week, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo was expected to propose a plan to speed construction on the first section as part of a package to stimulate the Island's economy.

The project manual puts the cost of the HOV plan for Exits 30 to 64 at $631 million, or $15.1 million a mile. The estimates were based on 1989 figures inflated to account for 1990 prices.

"They estimated how much it would cost to build in 1990," Mr. Wartur said. "It's already 1991, and they're not close to building. This is too low. They could never do it for this amount. It will be three to four times these estimates." Requirements of Air Law

A major consideration is meeting the requirements of the Federal Clean Air Act of 1990.

"The H.O.V. lane would help us meet new Clean Air Act standards by encouraging car pooling and reducing the number of cars on the road," said Ray Cowen, regional director of the state's Environmental Conservation Department.

"The thinking behind the H.O.V. is that if regular traffic is stopped but the H.O.V. lane is moving, someone sitting in traffic will say, 'If I can get John Jones to ride with me, then we can ride in the H.O.V. lane and won't be stuck here.' And that's one less car on the road."

Noise pollution is also a problem. In areas without barriers, noise from the expressway exceeds Federal limits. The state has spent $16 million on barriers, according to the executive director of the Long Island Regional Planning Board, Lee E. Koppelman. He added that residents gave conflicting signals about the noise problem. At one time, he said, residents of communities near the expressway "were howling and yelling because they were subject to too much noise." When the state erected wood barriers, "people squawked about the trees," Mr. Koppelman recalled. Relandscaping Expected

"That's not a virgin forest growing next to the expressway," he said. "A good deal of those trees were put in by the Transportation Department when the expressway was built. They relandscaped then and they will relandscape this time."

The expressway barriers have already attracted graffiti.

Some residents say that the walls are unsightly and that they would prefer "natural noise barriers" like trees.

The environmental director of the Transportation Department, Darryl Kost, said, "If we planted 100-foot-deep woods of evergreens 15 feet high on each side of the expressway, we still would not meet the Federal noise-abatement standards."

Aside from noise and esthetics, the barriers are presenting concerns about possible water pollution. Treated with chemicals, the barriers contain an arsenic preservative.

"Arsenic is a known human carcinogen," a spokesman for the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, Al Heier, said. "But it's been used on almost every deck in America over the last 10 years."

The Government approves the compound, chromated copper arsenate, for decks and patios, but not for preserving cutting boards or counter tops.

An E.P.A. Consumer Information Sheet advises, "Treated wood should not be used where it may come in direct or indirect contact with public drinking water, except for uses involving docks and bridges." Examining the Leachate

Mr. Koppelman said that his board had tests showing "the drainage system captures insignificant amounts of road runoff. Ground water just is not a legitimate concern in this case."

"We have limited data, but, using that data, we do not believe that arsenic from pressure-treated wood leaches out significantly," Mr. Heier said. "There is some leaching, but it does not add much to the background arsenic that is already found in soil and water. The arsenic adheres quite well to the wood and does not pose a significant added risk to people who drink the water."

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Other environmental experts say that even if some arsenic were released, it would become so diluted before reaching the water supply that it would be insignificant.

"Let's just say a little leached out," Mr. Kost said. "It wouldn't, but let's say it did. The arsenic would have to work its way through hundreds of feet of an extensive filtering and drainage system before it impacted ground water. Whatever is left, if anything, would be dissolved in millions of gallons of water."

A Transportation Department manual says, "Ground-water quality is a major concern, because the aquifers in the vicinity of the alignment are tapped for potable water."

"We are concerned about the water supply, we have done studies and continue to do studies," Mr. Kost said. "What we have found is that the chemicals do not show up in significant amounts when they eventually reach the water supply, and they certainly don't exceed Federal limits." its."

Engineers and environmentalists agree that pollution concerns and the road expansion needs would not be as great if there were fewer cars on the road.Mr. Koppelman said, "Until those same people who complain about the widening of the roads get out of their automobiles and into mass transportation, [ DOT ] will have to widen the other parkways as well."

Environmentalists say the HOV lane proposal reflects a recent shift in environmentalism to give the individual a larger role. "Environmentalism is shifting from a macrofocus to a microfocus," Mr. Cowen said. "We're asking individuals to get involved, from recycling, to fuel efficiency. We're asking each person to carpool or take mass transportation."

To deal with issues arising from the widening of the expressway, the Village of Old Westbury has hired a lawyer and an engineering consultant to meet with the Transportation Department and review its planning manuals.

"We are not against progress or improved transportation in the region," the lawyer, John Armantano, said. "What we do want is to have control, as much as we can have, over what happens in our communities. So when the department does begin construction, they do it in a way that is most acceptable to the communities."

Last year, the village of Westbury blocked the construction of the Northern State-Meadowbrook Parkway interchange, a $6.2-million project, for more than two months because of environmental concerns. 'A Lot of Very Vague Information'

Recently, at a meeting of officials and trustees of villages near the expressway, the engineering consultant for Old Westbury, Ethan Eldon, said he had serious concerns that the state was not revealing everything it knew about the expansion.

At a public meeting called by the Transportation Department, he said, he did not receive sufficient information. "Instead," he said, "we got a lot of very vague information and a lot of ducking and weaving on the part of the department."

Mr. Eldon speculated that the department might be planning to add two lanes in each direction.

Mr. Koppelman said he doubted that the extra land would be used for more than one lane. "It's the amount that is federally required for construction of a HOV lane," he said. "It's a set regulation."

At the officials' meeting, Mayor Kenneth Ousey of Lake Success said the Transportation Department had kept a technical manual secret for almost a year and that none of the affected villages had "any input into the state's plans." Disinterest in Communities Charged

"At this moment in time," Mr. Ousey said, "the state does not, I emphasize does not, have the best interests of our communities in mind."

Mr. Armantano said the department would create detours that would send traffic through neighborhood streets. Its manual, he said, states that the construction between Exits 30 and 40, compared with the work between Exits 40 and 64, "will be the most difficult, and the disruption of traffic on the L.I.E. and adjacent service roads will be the most severe."

The new lanes between Exits 40 and 64 would be created from part of what is now the median. But between Exits 30 and 40, the median is too narrow, and so the extra land would be taken from the right shoulder areas.

Although construction detours are inconvenient, Mr. Koppelman said, traffic on the service roads and streets would not be much worse than it is now.

"Traffic flows to areas of least resistance," he said. "Whenever there is a tie-up on the expressway, traffic seeks an alternative route. The L.I.E. is backed up now because it can't accommodate all the cars, and so traffic flows on to the service roads. These detours are happening already."

To alleviate backups, Mr. Siracusa said, no lanes would be closed at peak hours, and construction would be done at night and off-peak hours.

"Construction should be done between 11 P.M. and 5 A.M.," Mr. Koppelman said. "But unions want more money to work at night, and the state wants to reduce costs. So that has to be worked out." 25 Years of Building

The construction time also raises questions. Mr. Armantano said the Transportation Department technical manual said construction would take 25 years. Mr. Eldon said the department estimated that construction will continue "until the year 2015."

"That's incorrect," Mr. Siracusa said. "The design year, 2015, is used in the manual to assess whether, if construction began in 1995, it would be a good investment over a 20-year period."

Mr. Wartur, who designed parts of the Southern and Northern State Parkways, the Cross-Bronx Expressway and the Jones Beach Causeway, said a design year was a date for engineers to predict traffic conditions.

"Originally," he said, "we wanted to build for a 50-year design, but the funding just wasn't there. It costs much more to build something that will be good for 50 years. So they build instead for maybe a 20-year design. It's not as good, but it all goes back to money and politics."

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A version of this article appears in print on November 17, 1991, on Page LI12 of the National edition with the headline: Expressway Widening Faces Hurdles. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe